What is the Tomatometer®?

The Tomatometer rating – based on the published opinions of hundreds of film and television critics – is a trusted measurement of movie and TV programming quality for millions of moviegoers. It represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show.

From the Critics

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Fresh

The Tomatometer is 60% or higher.

Rotten

The Tomatometer is 59% or lower.

Certified Fresh

Movies and TV shows are Certified Fresh with a steady Tomatometer of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for wide-release movies, 40 for limited-release movies, 20 for TV shows), including 5 reviews from Top Critics.

So much better than I expected, It's a very intelligent film that has a great story about the gun trade that was more emotional than I thought it would be, Nic Cage was brilliant and Jared Leto puts in a fine performance too, There's no action so don't watch if you're expecting a shoot em up film, Based on true events made this film more entertaining even though I'm not sure how accurate it is but if only half is true it's still shocking in places, A very underrated movie that should get more praise and be watched by more people as it may turn out to be a powerful story to some viewers.

4/5. Lord of War is a really solid thriller that is basically The Wolf of Wall Street with guns. A lot of guns. The story is fascinating as has some excellent performances, particularly from Nick Cage and Ethan Hawke.

Lord of War turns what is an unbelievable true story that touches on the complexity of modern day warfare into a mind-numbing condescending story about a man who somehow becomes the top seller of weapons around the world despite having the conversation skills of a twelve-year-old. Nicolas Cage plays a Ukranian (we are reminded that he is Ukranian every thirty seconds or so by a reference to the traditions or sayings of the old country) man who has immigrated to the U.S. with his family and becomes inspired to sell guns. At first he partners with his brother, played by Jared Leto in a performance where he seems to be trying to up the ante in light of his co-star's traditionally unhinged characters. After falling victim to a drug addiction, Leto is checked into rehab repeatedly and only remains in the picture to serve as a moral but deadbeat foil to Cage's character's success.There is also an unconvincing love story thrown in just for the joy of getting to see Nicolas Cage have passionate shower sex with a supermodel with a heart of gold whom he somehow convinced to love him over the period of an afternoon. It's hard to imagine how he did this as his method of flirting, we learn later on in a scene with a waitress who is strangely attracted to him, consists of him making reference to showing a woman his "cannon," the oldest trick in the book.Most of the time I love a Cage performance, riddled by strange acting choices as they are, but this film was so lackluster and the unnecessary expositional voice-over so persistent that I honestly did not make it through the last twenty minutes.

Really good movie. Quite a bit of politicizing the gun issue in the end from a liberal angle (got them 65% from the critics at least) but overall the movie is entertaining and makes most jobs look boring. Well done Nicholas.

If the critics consider that "Critics Consensus: While Lord of War is an intelligent examination of the gun trade, it is too scattershot in its plotting to connect", I would say that if they knew history even on a mediocre level, I am certain they would connect the facts presented by each and every scene, the plot being of high historical accuracy.

great movie with a great story and good directing. lots of clever dialogue. makes you think about how things work in the world. good characters and some funny parts. reminded me of wardogs a lot (2 viewings)

Typically I believe that Cage movies should be assessed in their own category, but given the substantial production value of this movie and the plethora of other stars participating, I will relent and consider this a non-Cage movie. That being said, it is awful. Despite having tons of spectacular Cage-isms like satellite phones, his and his brother's completely un-acted Russian ethnicity, a cover job as an art dealer, a scene where he asks an African prostitute if she has AIDS and perhaps the most ridiculous Cage scene of all in which he repaints the name of a ship in something like 23 seconds, this movie is an absolute abortion. I dare say, poorly acted by Cage; Hawke legitimately seems afraid to be in the film and Jared Leto performs a predictably pathetic and hapless brother to Cage. God bless you, Nicolas Coppola, but he did not bless this film.